


guardians of a loveless isle

by bleustocking



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Comes Back Wrong, Extremely Dubious Consent, Grief/Mourning, It's Not Paranoia If They're Really Out To Get You, M/M, Mpreg, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Obsession, Rough Oral Sex, Tentacle Sex, Touch-Starved, Xenophilia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:00:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27532642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bleustocking/pseuds/bleustocking
Summary: Jack had loved Bowie for so long that at first, the question seemed impossible to comprehend. But Jack was also a ruthless pragmatist. He had to be; that was the only way to survive in the world. Cut off the parts of yourself that no longer served a purpose. Let a small part of yourself die, so the whole could survive.A space-explorer returns home. His pregnant widow is uncertain how to handle it.
Relationships: Devoted Husband Who Came Back Wrong/His Grieving Widower With Trust Issues
Comments: 12
Kudos: 73
Collections: Consent Issues Exchange 2020





	guardians of a loveless isle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shamebucket](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shamebucket/gifts).



Jack couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t know Bowie. Their parents had been friends and then next door neighbors. Growing up, Jack was used to going in and out of Bowie’s house as easily as his own. They shared the same grade in school, the same friends, combined family vacations, mutual obsessions, packs of gum. Bowie was his first friend, his best friend.

Jack didn’t know when those feelings of friendship turned into something else — it had happened so slowly that he couldn’t keep track of it — but by Christmas of their first year in college, Jack was ready to admit that he’d fallen in love with his best friend. 

They had gone to different schools — Bowie was interested in aeronautics, with an eye at becoming an astronaut, while Jack was into medicine — but both had come home for Christmas and had begun to hang out again in the basement of Bowie’s family home. 

Jack could still remember the smell of the half-unfinished basement, the hum of the dryer running and the sweet, sour taste of the beer they had been drinking. He blinked. The smoke from the pot they’d been smoking had yet to clear. “Are you sure they’ll let you go to space if they know you’re a big pothead?”

Bowie, who was sprawled out next to Jack on the overstuffed couch, took a lazy swipe at him. “Depends on whether you keep my secrets or not.”

Jack laughed. “What kind of secrets have you been keeping, Bowie?”

Bowie straightened up and looked at him earnestly. He was a handsome boy, with brown skin and hair that had a tendency to curl. His eyes were a puzzling hazel, light brown in some lights and angles, and a witchy green in others. When Bowie looked at you, it was like he looked at all of you. Outside and in. Jack almost shivered at the intensity of his scrutiny. 

He was about to make a joke, deflect, when Bowie smiled suddenly. It was like sunshine in a clearing in the woods. Jack’s heart felt tight with sudden and inexplicable love. 

“I can show you,” Bowie said and leaned over and kissed Jack. The kiss blew Jack’s mind into a million pieces. He saw stars. He melted. He experienced all the clichés and they were all true. 

From then on, he and Bowie were together. It didn’t matter if Bowie was an alpha and Jack, a beta. They didn’t care and no one else could make them care. What mattered was that they were together, through thick and thin, despite all the bullshit from their families and the demands of work and life.

When Bowie decided to join an experimental space exploration mission, Jack supported him. The mission would only take five months, and after that their life could carry on. Together. 

But soon, complications arose. Bowie started acting differently in the months leading up to the launch. He kept secrets from Jack, citing national security, which was bullshit. Before, they had laughed about some of the lengths the agency went to, to make sure their objectives didn’t leak out. Not anymore. Bowie kept their secrets. Jack was in the dark.

Jack could even swear some of the changes were physical, but he couldn’t put a finger on exactly what had changed. Was Bowie taller than before? Were his eyes greener? Whatever was happening, he didn’t become less attractive. Quite the contrary. They probably had more sex than ever, going at it like newlyweds. Their love-making — and Bowie did insist on calling it love-making, even when Jack pretended to gag — was all the more poignant with the prospect of separation just around the corner. 

The separation would be different and longer than any of Bowie’s previous missions. It wasn’t just a jaunt to a space station or a satellite this time. Instead, Bowie and the crew of the _Nostra_ were meant to travel not only through space but between dimensions, exploring a rip in time and space called the Outside.

It all sounded like science fiction to Jack, whose interests were focused on the inner workings of human bodies, but Bowie said that if their mission was a success, technology and medicine would advance ahead by light years. 

Jack watched Bowie carefully when he talked about the mission. He was always animated, excited. He stated impossible goals with disarming frankness. Bowie believed in every word he was speaking. Such faith disturbed Jack, in ways that went deeper than not believing the agency’s press copy. 

He and Bowie had once been companionable cynics together. Now that one of them had become a true believer, clashes were inevitable. Jack knew the mission was important to Bowie — a once in a lifetime experience — but he couldn’t get rid of the feeling that something would go wrong. 

When he broached his concerns with Bowie, his husband was as loving and patient as ever, but made it clear that Jack’s concerns weren’t warranted. 

“They’ve taken every precaution, tested every probability. I’ve seen it, Jay. Nothing will go wrong,” Bowie said on their last night together before the launch. They were at Bowie’s cabin on the shore. Outside, the surf pounded against the rocky cliffs. The wind howled through the cracks in the house.

Jack wondered why the hell he had thought going to the cabin in November would be a good idea. It had seemed more romantic than fucking one last time in their apartment in the city, but at least the sea hadn’t seemed to want to crawl through their door there. 

“If I asked you to refuse the mission, would you do it?” Jack asked carefully. Bowie stilled. His big, blunt fingers worried the edge of the blanket. In the light, his eyes seemed dark and shadowed.

“You wouldn’t ask me that,” Bowie said flatly. “Not when you know how much it all means to me.” 

“And if I told you I was pregnant?” Jack blurted out. He watched as Bowie’s face changed. Or rather, it didn’t — it was as if he was frozen. He didn’t look disbelieving, at least, Jack thought with a pang of disappointment. But he also didn’t seem enthused. 

Jack had wanted more of a reaction than that — after all, on the face of it, it was impossible. 

“I didn’t want to tell you until I was sure,” Jack continued. He knew he had a tendency to ramble when he got nervous. He tried to tamp that urge down, to explain himself as calmly as possible. “I know it’s a one in a million chance that a beta like me could get pregnant, but I’ve done the tests, Bowie. It’s real.” 

“How far along are you?” Bowie asked calmly.

“A few weeks,” Jack replied. “Bow, I don’t want to do this alone.” 

“You won’t,” Bowie said. “I’ll be back before you know it. Jack, I have to do this. It’s my dream to go out there.” 

Jack felt all the fight go out of him. It wasn’t as though he'd believed his pregnancy would be some kind of trump card to stop Bowie from leaving — he knew his husband too well for that — but he’d hoped… well, it didn’t matter what he had hoped now. He accepted Bowie’s kiss, and shivered when Bowie lifted his shirt up and kissed his still-flat stomach. 

“I’ll be back soon,” Bowie said with a small smile. “And I can’t wait to see you both.” 

Jack smiled tightly. There was nothing more he could do. 

A few hours later, he was nudged from sleep by Bowie softly calling his name. Jack sat up, sleep still in his eyes. “Wait, I’m awake. Are we supposed to start now?”

“Well, yeah,” Bowie said. He was already dressed and ready, a cup of coffee in his hand. Jack tried not to hate him. Bowie was always great in the mornings — and really, any other time. Jack was the opposite. Bowie cleared his throat. “I want you to promise me something before I go.”

“What is it?” Jack asked.

“No matter the temptation, don’t call the baby Jackson.” 

Jack whipped the pillow at him, but Bowie dodged away with a laugh. 

*

Jack knew something had gone terribly wrong when the man in black turned up at his door. He was completely nondescript, of middling height and weight, with black sunglasses covering his eyes. He reminded Jack of the man who had come to interview him before he and Bowie had gotten married, to test his suitability to be a spouse for someone who was, even then, expected to head the most ambitious mission to another world.

Jack knew at once that Agent Sunday — which was what he introduced himself as — had no good news to share. 

“What is it?” Jack said. “Did the mission get scrubbed? Bowie’s going to be so disappointed but —” 

“The news reports haven’t come in yet, but it was decided that you ought to know beforehand. Captain Langdale and the rest of the crew encountered greater resistance than expected, and the _Nostra_ was destroyed. There were no survivors. The nation and the agency appreciate your sacrifice, Dr. Cable.” 

“What?” Jack felt as if the ground had dropped from under him. “This isn’t true — Bowie can’t be dead.” 

Agent Sunday’s face was impassive. He took a slim manila folder out of his breast pocket and handed it to Jack. “He knew the risks when he signed up. He was supposed to convey those risks to you.” 

“But how — how did he die?” 

But Sunday was already turning aside. “If some of the remains can be recovered, they will be brought to you.” 

“Hey!” Jack’s voice sounded ragged even to his own ears. “Don’t walk away from me! Tell me what happened to him!” 

“Read the files, Mr. Cable,” said Agent Sunday as he walked away, leaving Jack to deal with a world that had changed in the space of fifteen minutes. 

*

The condolences came rolling in, of course, but Jack hardly noticed them. If he had resented the cabin before, it was now his refuge from the rest of the world. The folder Agent Sunday had left him hardly explained anything. The _Nostra_ ’s experimental drive, the very thing that was supposed to push them into the other dimension, had had a fatal flaw in it. 

Instead of pushing them beyond the realm of human knowledge, it had simply torn the _Nostra_ apart, and then the Outside had swallowed them up. There had been no communication from the ship after the meltdown of the drive. It was assumed that neither the ship nor any of the crew existed in either dimension now. 

Of the two of them, it was Bowie who had been the idealist; it was Bowie who had known how to grieve. Jack simply shut down. He continued to work as usual. He tried to eat well, keep healthy for the sake of the — the child. But through everything, he kept thinking. _He’s dead. He’s dead. He’s dead._

Nothing would be good or okay again. The lights had gone out. Jack was alone.

*

Six months later, Jack noticed a strange light in the sky. It had persisted for several days so far, a steady, greenish light over the water. At first, he thought it could be a boat doing a spot of night fishing, but he shouldn’t have been able to see it during the day. One summer when they were kids, he and Bowie had been obsessed with the concept of aliens — this was years before the Disclosure, and the experiments into the Outside, before the realization that the aliens everyone knew about were merely excursions from intelligences beyond the Outside. 

The _Nostra_ had been humanity’s first attempt to step into the Outside, and look how that had turned out… Jack shook his head sharply and kept his eyes to the sky. The light that had been growing stronger all night now disappeared. He realized it must be something falling into the water. Jack left his dinner half-eaten on the table and grabbed a lantern and coat and headed for the beach. 

It was March and there was still a wintry edge to the wind blowing off the ocean, but Jack ignored it, wrapping his scarf more tightly around his neck. The light was back again; now it was coming from the water. It was strong enough now to light up the rocky beach, casting weird shadows across the boulders. Jack tried to make it out. Was it a piece of space junk? Would he be in danger since it had hit so close? 

The baby kicked uneasily in his stomach, and Jack placed a hand on his bump, trying to think reassuring thoughts for the baby. It would be… fine. If something happened, he would call Agent Sunday. The men in black could handle whatever this was. 

Suddenly, the light went out. Jack waited for a few minutes, feeling stupid. Whatever had fallen wouldn’t necessarily wash ashore. He was about to turn away and head back to the cabin when he heard a splashing sound. Jack frowned and followed it. He saw a figure emerge from the water. It was tall and thin, and vaguely person-shaped. It was still glowing green. It was also heading directly for him. 

It wouldn’t do any good to run, Jack thought as he watched the creature emerge from the water. If this thing could fall from the sky and crawl out of the ocean and still be fine, he would be no match for it. Besides, his curiosity was killing him. 

The thing got up on two legs and picked up speed. It was only a few paces from Jack when recognition hit. 

Bowie was completely changed. He was irradiated, his skin drained of any semblance of color. His eyes were liquid black and when he opened his mouth, sea water poured out. A tiny fish hit the packed sand beneath his feet. They stared at each other for what seemed like hours, but must have been just minutes. 

Bowie — or what had once been Bowie — spoke first. His voice was a jangle of ruined sounds, with only faint echoes of the voice that Jack knew and loved so well. But what he said was dead-on, something he always said after coming home from a mission, something that Jack had always teased him about for being embarrassingly corny. 

“Honey,” said the eldritch creature that Jack had once known as his husband, “I’m home.” He glanced upward into the inky blackness of space, and then looked back at Jack, who was frozen in shock. “It took me such a long time to get back to the both of you.” 

The wind picked up sharply and it took Jack’s scarf with it. Bowie caught it — his arms grew longer to catch it, and he brought it to his nose and breathed in deep. His eyes locked on to Jack’s. “Aren’t you going to say something?” 

“Fuck,” Jack said, trying to swallow the cacophony of feelings — both of love and terror — that was rising inside him. “Bowie, you’re supposed to be _dead._ ” 

“I got — better isn’t the word. I became _more_. To see you.” 

Jack shook his head. He felt light-headed and felt himself falling. He cursed himself — his doctors had warned him about his low blood pressure, but the timing couldn’t be worse. He fell to his knees and found himself being taken up into Bowie’s arms. Bowie had always been a strong man, but now it seemed as though Jack’s weight was nothing to him. He strode across the beach, Jack in his arms, toward the cabin.

He knew his way home, after all. 

*

Eight hours later, Jack and Bowie were sitting across from each other at the breakfast table, indulging in a contest of wills. In the warm light of day, Bowie didn’t look any less — dead. There were thin black veins that ran across his grey skin. His eyes had faded back into a muddy green, but they was all irises.

“You look like a Giger painting come to life,” Jack said, biting into a piece of dry toast. Bowie refused anything to eat. The silence between them lengthened uncomfortably until Jack gulped down his last sip of coffee and stood up. He clapped his hands together and said briskly, “Well, let’s not waste time. We need to run some tests on you.” 

“You can’t bring me in,” Bowie said flatly. “If you do, we’ll never see each other again.” 

“I don’t intend to do that. I have a lab right here.” 

“Jack, what are you talking about,” Bowie said, his mouth slowly sounding out the words. That was the hell of the thing, Jack thought. He still sounded the same. 

Jack adjusted his glasses and took them off, buffing the smudges from the lenses. “You’re not the only one who changed, Bowie. I’ve had to adapt too.” 

“Adapt? What? Have you become a mad scientist or something?” 

“Or something,” Jack said uncomfortably. He placed his hand on his belly. “I’ve always thought the timing of this pregnancy was strange. It seemed so unlikely, even weird. I considered aborting, but I —” He bit his lip. “After you died, I couldn’t. I thought it was the only thing I had left of you. But you knew it was strange too, didn’t you?” 

Bowie hesitated. “They told me that the experiments wouldn’t result in any physical changes. They were just to help my body survive the conditions of the Outside. I didn’t think it would result in anything more.” 

“Well, it did, clearly,” Jack said. “Take a look at you.” 

“Ha,” Bowie replied. “Very funny.” 

“Anyway,” Jack continued, taking a deep breath. “Your kid’s weird too. Let me show you.” 

He took Bowie down to the improvised laboratory he’d made in the spare bedroom of the cabin. Jack tried to explain the difficulties he’d had in getting proper medical attention after his pregnancy. The confusing symptoms, the slow growth of the fetus. The strange visions he’d had during the early months of his pregnancy — all unaccounted for. 

Most doctors simply didn’t believe that he had been a beta before, saying he must’ve presented later than usual. It didn’t matter that Jack was thirty and had had his status confirmed for almost fifteen years. Male betas weren’t supposed to get pregnant, Jack was pregnant, QED, Jack wasn’t a beta — that was the conclusion from the medical field. 

Agent Sunday had referred Jack to an agency doctor, but Jack thought Dr. Gustavson had her own reasons for getting so much bloodwork and data from him. She didn’t harangue him over his status, anyway. But her interest was — unnerving, to say the least. The agency’s interest in the baby felt wrong, and had some element of danger. So Jack had to take things into his own hands. 

“I’ve been trying to eat enough, get enough exercise, but I think this thing’s really killing me,” Jack said conversationally. When Bowie started at that, he shook his head. “I’m kidding. But things are weird. But we should now examine you.” 

Bowie was still basically human-shaped. He was still _Bowie_ -shaped, Jack noticed with a pang. But there were some immediate, obvious differences now. He was taller, as if he’d been stretched out. His skin was grey with black veins. His hair was still black and curly, but now there were streaks of grey in it. There were slits across his sides, which didn’t seem as though they were wounds. He didn’t flinch when Jack fingered them curiously. 

Idly, Jack wondered if the baby would come with some extra set of slits, or glowing green, or with black veins and eyes. If they had been experimenting with Bowie before the launch, it made sense that something might have been passed through. The baby shifted slightly in his belly, pressing a foot on Jack’s bladder. He excused himself to go to the bathroom, and took a moment to scream into the towel. 

When he came back to the examination room, Bowie eyed him knowingly, but Jack decided to ignore that. 

“Is everyone in the _Nostra_ like you?” Jack asked as he made notes of all the changes, in the cipher he’d been developing to keep track of the baby’s progress. “Is Jane Soloway examining Sarah like this?” 

“I’m the only one who survived. I think,” Bowie said, frowning. “I don’t really remember anything between the launch and crawling out of the sea last night. It was like a blink of an eye.” 

“Six months gone in a blink of an eye,” Jack said, flicking on a penlight and shining a light into Bowie’s eyes. They were pools of darkness that swallowed up the penlight like black holes. “Like you’ve been with the fairies.” 

“You’re a scientist,” Bowie reminded him. 

“That didn’t stop me from having an undead husband or a changeling in my belly. By the way, your heart’s not beating anymore, Bowie.” Jack flicked off the flashlight and looked at him. But Bowie said nothing in return. 

*

Jack didn’t know if he was supposed to call anyone and tell them that Bowie was back. His parents should know, probably. But he didn’t know how to contact them without letting the agency know too. He’d gotten to have something of a rapport with Agent Sunday — in that the agent would sometimes show up at the cabin without notice, tell him all the things he was doing wrong, give him one of those dry, humorless laughs, and then leave. Jack supposed the agency had something of a vested interest in his pregnancy, but not enough to completely section and experiment on him. 

He let Bowie sleep in the bed while he worked, compiling his observations. When the alarm dinged, letting him know it had been six hours, Jack got something to eat and wandered back into the bedroom. He half-expected to find the bed empty, for the last twenty-four hours to be just a delusion, but Bowie was still there. 

He sat up as soon as Jack entered the room, and waited for him to speak. 

Jack cleared his throat. They both knew what would happen now. “Do you remember how we first met?”

“Yes,” Bowie said, getting up from bed. He smiled a little. “My memory’s always been better than yours.” 

“Remind me,” Jack said, leaning against the door. 

“You and your parents had just moved into the neighborhood. You were seven but you wore a T-shirt with Mickey Mouse on it. I thought I had to look out for this kid or he would get bullied to death.” 

“Tell me something specific,” Jack said as Bowie crept closer to him. 

“You gave me a bloody nose when you thought I was looking down on you,” Bowie said with a smile. “You never allowed that. You were always so proud, even when you were just a kid.” 

Bowie was now standing right before him. His answers were all correct. His affection, apparent. Even the way he smiled — all of it was right. But something made Jack hesitate, made him shake his head regretfully. 

“This is all — generic memories. Anyone could guess —” 

Softly, Bowie said, “You lost your virginity to me the winter after we graduated from college. You didn’t tell me that but I knew.” 

“Fuck _you_ ,” Jack said, his words automatic. “You didn’t know that.” 

It was then Bowie took his arm and reeled him into bed. This was the first time they had touched. Bowie’s hand was cold. Even the texture of it was different than before. Jack had a sudden reckoning that not only was the person in front of him different from Bowie — no matter what he said, no matter what he remembered — but he was also different, separate from all the other humans on this planet. 

Jack hadn’t allowed himself to feel fear before — his grief and ire had been more pressing matters. But this was a creature from another world, no matter how much — how _badly_ he wanted it to be Bowie. 

He kissed Jack hard and Jack didn’t struggle against it. Jack wanted to kiss Bowie, had wanted it every day for six months. 

But not like this, not when he wasn’t even sure his husband was still his husband. But Bowie kept kissing him, and eventually, stripping him of his clothes. Jack felt as though some power had struck him dumb. He couldn’t say no. It felt good, when Bowie touched him. It always felt good when Bowie touched him. 

Was he going to forget what it had been like when Bowie was a normal human being, if he carried on now? Wasn’t it wrong if it felt the same, wasn’t it some kind of betrayal? Jack’s mind didn’t let him relax as his clothes were pulled away from him and each uncovered spot was kissed and caressed. 

Soon, Jack was shivering at the coldness of Bowie’s skin. “Wait,” he said, his words being swallowed up by Bowie’s kisses. He tried pushing Bowie away, but his husband was so much stronger now than he had been before. Bowie had always been athletic, but now his strength was supernatural. He seemed not to register Jack’s discomfort, holding him fast in his arms as well as — 

“The baby,” Jack gasped out. “Don’t —” 

“I wouldn’t,” Bowie said, his voice clipped. “It’s mine.” 

With a sickening lurch, Jack understood. It was his baby — Bowie’s baby. No matter what he did now, even if he managed to break free from Bowie’s grasp, escape from the cabin, even get the agency to come and collect Bowie for further study — Jack would still have a piece of Bowie growing inside of him. He could never escape that. 

Numbly, Jack registered how the slits on Bowie’s sides had opened up; dark, tentacle-like strands poured out of him and wrapped themselves around Jack, immobilizing him. “It’s been so long since I touched you,” Bowie moaned, putting his hands on Jack’s belly, leaning in and kissing the bump. “I missed you, I love you. I need you, Jack.” 

When Jack could speak, he managed to spit out, “This isn’t you.” 

“It is,” Bowie insisted and opened his mouth -- too, too wide -- and revealed a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth and a long, blood-red tongue. He pulled his head down and took Jack’s cock — horribly at half-mast — into his mouth. He was careful with his teeth; Jack could feel nothing but the slick smooth muscle of his tongue and the unexpected heat of it. The heat, Jack realized in horror, was his own — somehow Bowie was able to take away his vitality and give it back to him in a twisted way. He came quickly under this strange embrace, but Bowie didn’t let him go. Instead, he twisted — as if he had no bones left — and molded himself around Jack, in a mockery of protection and love. 

When the baby shifted in Jack’s belly as Bowie surrounded him, Jack could feel Bowie’s pleasure, his triumph. _Our baby_ , Bowie told him, whispering into Jack’s sweaty skin. Jack shuddered and tried to squirm away. Bowie wouldn’t let him. He kept saying how much he loved Jack, how much he'd missed him. How much he longed to be a part of their family again. How they would be together forever. 

Jack had always known Bowie loved him more. 

*

Jack woke up with a jerk. It had to be a few hours later — the window that looked out on the ocean was black, with the moon covered by clouds. Bowie was still. Not sleeping, Jack realized. He didn’t need to sleep. Some kind of stasis, then. He didn’t move or give any indication that he noticed when Jack crawled away from him. 

His phone was charging in the kitchen and Jack’s hands shook as he dialed Agent Sunday’s number. It rang twice before Sunday picked up. “H’llo?” His voice was thick, as if he had been sleeping. Jack frowned and finally checked the time. It was three-thirty in the morning, far later than he’d supposed. 

“Jack? Are you all right?” 

“Sorry, I didn’t realize it was so late,” Jack said, trying to keep his voice steady. His voice was hoarse, as if he had been screaming. He didn’t remember doing so. “Could you come over — I have a situation over here.” 

“What happened? Is it the baby?” 

Instinctively, Jack placed a hand on his belly. The baby kicked at him and he breathed a sigh of relief, despite himself. “No, the baby’s fine. I have — some questions about the crash, that’s all.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Could there have been any survivors…?” 

“No,” Sunday said. “It’s impossible.” 

Jack could hear rustling as if Sunday was getting out of bed, dressing. “I’ll be there in an hour.” 

“Take your time,” Jack replied as the line went dead. 

He sat on the kitchen floor and listened for sounds from the other room. Eventually, he heard them. Bowie came into the kitchen. He was, Jack realized, making an effort to look more human now. He’d even pulled on a robe — one of Jack’s old ones, ratty and red, with his alma mater’s seal on the breast pocket. It was obvious he had heard everything. 

“Jack,” he said, his voice broken. “I know I shouldn’t have done that. I scared you. I didn’t mean to.” 

“You should ask me a question,” Jack said calmly as Bowie got on his knees and crawled towards him. “Check to see if I’m the real one too.” 

“OK,” Bowie said as he reached him. The tentacles came sliding out and touched Jack’s face and hands. “When did you stop loving me?” 

His words were like a physical blow. Jack had loved Bowie for so long that at first, the question seemed impossible to comprehend. But Jack was also a ruthless pragmatist. He had to be; that was the only way to survive in the world. Cut off the parts of yourself that no longer served a purpose. Let a small part of yourself die, so the whole could survive. 

Jack closed his eyes and allowed the strands to touch his face and hands. They twisted together, made stronger tentacles. They waved in the air like they were underwater. If Jack was anything of an artist, he would have admired their beauty. But he wasn’t that. He was, and could only be, himself. 

“When you died. I stopped,” Jack said, letting the terrible words spill across his lips. He watched Bowie, watched his eyes, now black and bottomless. He would never see the brown or the green of them again. He wondered if their child would have Bowie’s old eyes or his new ones. 

Tears began to drip down Jack’s cheeks. He was almost surprised by their presence. He hadn’t even cried when his mother had died from cancer, a decade ago. He brushed them aside. Bowie was still watching him. Waiting. 

“I tried to move on,” Jack said. “I even tried fucking other people. It wasn’t the same. Even if you were dead. Even if I didn’t love you anymore, it wasn’t the same. Why do you think I’m still here? Bowie, we made a baby here and then you died.” 

“I’m here now,” Bowie told him. He wrapped himself around Jack again, whispering into his ear. “I won’t leave you alone again.” 

Then, he let Jack see him in his new and strange form. If Jack wanted to, he could carve into Bowie’s body and take out the remnants of his heart, and Bowie would still be there, still existent. Beyond life or death, compelled forward only by love and obsession. 

*

One of the advantages of living in the middle of nowhere was that visitors could be spotted from a long way off. Jack had dressed and poured himself a cup of coffee by the time Agent Sunday knocked on his door. Jack opened the door and greeted Sunday with a cheerful smile. “Guess you didn’t get my other messages telling you not to bother coming out.” 

Sunday’s face was studiously blank. “I thought it would be better to check up on you.” 

“I’m sure the agency wants to make sure nothing happened to the baby,” Jack replied. He made no move to open the door further and let Sunday inside. “You can tell them everything’s fine. Please excuse my terrible manners, I’ve been living like a pig.” 

“I don’t care about messes,” Sunday said. “If you’d let me in…” 

Jack kept his smile plastered on his face. “I wouldn’t advise it.” 

It was then Sunday’s phone rang. He excused himself for a moment and then came back, looking impatient. “Clean up after yourself, Cable. Or hire someone, I know you can afford it. They want you to come down to the city for tests next week.” 

“All right,” Jack said and waved goodbye. Sunday was back on the phone, talking to someone as he walked back to the car. He glanced back once, looking suspiciously at the shuttered windows. 

When Jack closed the door, he sighed deeply, leaning against the cold wood. His face was burning hot. 

“You should’ve let me eat him,” Bowie said, his teeth bright white against the gloom of the kitchen. “I wouldn’t have left a trace.” 

“They’d send others to check on him,” Jack replied. “They know the baby’s something different.” 

“We won’t let them have her,” Bowie said, and Jack nodded. 

And just like that, they were together again. 

*

“You’re a nightmare creature!” Jack shouted, some nine months later. He’d emerged from his lab to find the entire kitchen in a mess. Somehow, the washer had overflowed and was spilling suds onto the floor. Smoke was rising from the stove and Jack moved quickly to close it. 

“I’m the nightmare creature you married,” Bowie replied calmly, as he prepared Petra’s bottle. Petra giggled happily and reached for it. But her tentacles were unpracticed and she would’ve dropped it if not for Bowie’s dexterity. Despite himself, Jack found himself smiling at the scene. 

A year or two ago, he would’ve never suspected that all of this was coming for him. And yet, now that it had all happened, he couldn’t imagine it going down any other way. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my beta, El!


End file.
